Favorite Childhood Garden Memories

Mom didn't garden.  She had a few houseplants but that was it.  Spent the summers with Dad's mom and dad.  One summer we spent it with Mom's mom.  She was a tiny southern bell.  She sent me out to plant flowers in the front flower bed.  I remember sprinkling the flower packet seeds all over the area, pushing the seeds into the soil and watering.  I watered throughout the summer and watched the pretty wildflowers grow.  Very comforting memory.  Thanks for the reminder!

Anne Miller wrote:Probably mine would be learning to plant seeds in school.

Pinto beans, egg cartons, and cotton balls.

Take an egg carton, the kind made from paper.

Drop in 12 pinto beans in each cavity.

Place 12 cotton balls, one in each cavity over the beans.

Water each one and do this to keep the cotton ball from getting dry.

When I had my first garden this is how I planted the seeds.

Wow! I totally forgot about planting seeds in school until you reminded me! For ours, we were each given a clear plastic cup, and we stuffed a paper towel in it. We were each given 3 beans, and put them halfway down around between the cup and the paper towel, so we could see them, and we watered them.  

My first garden memory is of my grandfather's small garden. When I was very little, he taught me how to tell when carrots are ready to be picked. We picked a few and rinsed them in my baby pool and ate them right there. He went inside, leaving me alone a while. I was so proud to have this knowledge of how to tell a carrot is ready, I inspected them and decided I could tell another carrot was ready. And another. And another. And another... He came back out and said "Who ate all the carrots??"
I felt bad, but he was so kind & gentle, he just smiled and laughed about it.

My parents and grandparents were keen gardeners. When I was little we lived in a rental, with only an area in the back to play in, but we moved when I was about 4 to a house with a bigger garden (still mostly play space at first though!). My parents grew lots of fruit and vegetables, I don't think we were much help to them, a missed opportunity for me perhaps. I remember podding peas and moving manure piles! My grandparents lived a little way away, but we used to visit, either as a family, or as one or two kids at a time for a special time. Grandad had a vegetable plot at the bottom of the garden that was fenced off, and in between there and the house was a maze of crazy paving paths, fruit trees and flower beds, we used to scoot around there on various wheeled play-vehicles. I remember that they had a lovely Victoria plum tree near the house, and the coal bunker was almost hidden in a privet bush. Gran had purple hydrangea in the front garden, and lots of fuchsia - I loved the ballerina flowers! I think my grandparents must have had a lot of patience for us!

My grandfather, who lived in the village so he didn't have room for a garden, had a garden located on a family friends offgrid property. He would drive us down there when I was a tike (eight years old maybe?) and teach me what he knew about gardening.

At one point in his life, gardening and hunting were critical for feeding his family as they grew up. This time around, it was more for the pleasures that gardening brings.

One particular day, and he reminds me of the story, there was a rabbit in the garden and he encouraged me to chase it out! I ran after it right into a big hedge of sumac. One that particular day, I learned what poison sumac was and it was a uncomfortable recovery experience!

He would cut the families hair and put it out to deter deer, hang up pie plates and even make a scarecrow to try and protect his crops from wild nibblers.

I look back fondly at those memories and I get a feeling of pride when he stops by my gardens and wanders around. It makes me feel connected to the past and the present.

my mother always had a garden, but since she worked and was busy taking care of siblings/my bedridden aunt it was often more decorative than productive....

She always says now she can't believe I do so much in my own garden, "you never were interested in plants..." I told her, the thing she doesn't know is that when I was little and she threw me out in the yard to go play my own (as mothers did back in the late 70s and early 80s to get some peace), my favorite place to play as a small kid was the *compost pile*!! I would excavate archaeological remains and search for clues. To this day the smell of a rotten onion doesn't send me gagging but instead has me remembering that yard, where every once in a while a deer would appear under the willow trees that marked the boundary. Good times!